


Memoralgia

by dicyfer



Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: Angst, H. M. S. Surprise, PTSD, poor stephen, post-port mahon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29893722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dicyfer/pseuds/dicyfer
Summary: Set during the events of H. M. S. Surprise. After so much disappointment, Stephen reaches a breaking point, and the torture at Port Mahon is not so far behind him as he'd thought.
Kudos: 4





	Memoralgia

**Author's Note:**

> Please note I didn't care to perfectly cross reference my interpolations with the book text, there may be slight inconsistencies but consider this an augmentation of the events rather than a re-write.

He first noticed it after his failed proposal to Diana. At the first indication of denial he felt a sharp pain in his hands, a jolt like lightning that simultaneously pulled the strength from his legs. He was aware of her sudden concern—he must look awful—but the words smeared in his mind and he was unable to stop himself from raising his hands somewhere over his stomach—not quite strong enough to reach his heart—as if to cradle them in their pain. The arthritic ache was a surprise, one he tried to hide by forcing his hands back down to grip the couch he had sunk down onto. The act of pressing his fingers into the fabric turned the pain white hot.

“How pale you’ve gone Maturin!” her voice like a distant cello string, somehow still pleasant to listen to despite having been the bearer of his heartbreak. Summoning a fortitude he had been called to rely on far too frequently as of late, he took a few deep breaths and willed the pain away, let himself settle into this new sense of certainty: he no longer had to worry about being rejected—it had happened. And now he was free to incorporate this new disappointment into the vast ledger of the old ones, safe and untoothed, to be recorded in his diary and kept there, bound and harmless.  
Unable to explain that his pale shaking state was in fact a reaction to a quite physical pain, he let Diana fawn over him as he attempted to lead their conversation anew—speaking of his castle, the sheep, the marble bath.

When he saw Canning raise his hand in a slow, drunken urge to attack, Stephen did nothing to evade it—his hands pulsing in agony and his heart begging for greater excuse to ache.

\--

The second time, he was caught just as unaware. Dil, the child he had killed, laying before her wailing mother. In the few lilting strides he managed before collapsing in front of them he felt his hands curl painfully, taught at his sides and almost unmovable. It was agonizing work to remove the 12 rupees from his shaking purse to claim her. He felt fire spread through every finger as he gently lifted her small body. The involuntary curl of them kept her close, pressed into her cooled flesh. He denied his mind the description of approaching rigor mortis. Instead he focused determinedly on the pyres in front of him, eventually laying her down with shivering hands. Upon releasing her the pain flared to blinding heights and he was unable to help the small moan that resonated in his throat.

Finally he stepped back and watched her burn, scent of charred flesh mingling with sandalwood, and held his hands against his chest while tears dripped staccato onto his shaking knuckles.

\--

The third time, he saw a pattern. It was there in the feeling of the ring in the envelope left by Diana, a sudden ache as if knives were being driven between each of his knuckles. Like they had done in Mahon. He felt the blood drain from his face as an overwhelming rush of pain flooded his hands, his heart hammering wildly in his chest. He had never fainted before but he certainly knew the signs and he was unwilling to shame himself so obviously in front of Jack. He excused himself and let his feet carry him, a corpse-like weight, up the mountainside. His right hand curled around the letter with such violence he was sure he would be cutting into his own skin if his nails had not been removed. The weight of the ring seemed disproportionate to its size, and he desperately wanted to release it. But his grip, agonizing as it was, would not soften. He felt mad with pain. Could practically feel the bloody tear at his wrists as he had struggled against the leather straps of the interrogation chamber. He heard Diana’s voice—but she was insisting that he was a spy and speaking haughtily that his country had abandoned him—there was no hope for rescue—he would die here in Mahon whether he spoke or no—but could offer a quick death if he would simply reveal his contacts, break the cypher—perhaps a glass of his beloved laudanum? Her crystalline laugh mixed terribly with what he knew were his own cries, and with a jolt he collapsed to the ground. But it was the surprising dirt of the mountainside that roused him from the vision. Right. Here in Madeira.

Shaking and unable to suppress the intermittent cries that formed a shameful rhythm in his throat, Stephen curled around his hands and gave himself to the pain. His breath short, eyes clenched shut. It was only the scent of Madeira’s earth that kept him from the torture room. Still he couldn’t shake the echo of Diana’s voice from his mind. He was unable to suppress the terrible image of her in that evanescent blue gown, body so full and near, black hair like a waterfall parted by the supple presence of her breasts, and yet the tongs in her hand, reaching for him, her laughter of delight—

A gentle cooing to his left. With difficulty, Stephen raised his head and turned, hands still shaking at his heart. A few feet away was a small grey bird, scratching about by a stone. It looked at him and cooed once more, a pattern of two by three. A laurel pigeon— _columba trocaz_ some unaffected encyclopedic part of his mind supplied. He had never seen one before—they had become rare in recent years thanks to the ship rats. It flashed its pink-tinted breast at him before becoming discomforted by his desolate gaze and taking off into the air. He watched it go and felt a great exhale overcome his body.  


He felt empty, entirely devoid of humanity. His hands were weak and stiff but no longer blazing pyres of agony. With difficulty he righted himself and let the letter and ring drop to the dirt between his feet. He could feel the salt-encrusted tracks of tears across his face and knew his clothes were in no better state. With a scientific curiosity he looked down at his hands and was surprised to see that they were not burning red, no sign of inflammation or reopened wounds.

Already that ruthless part of him—the part that kept him alive, the part that, before disrupted in its connection, allowed him to pick off a playing card at 50 paces, that let him dig his scalpel into a moaning patient without hesitation—already that reptilian mind was cataloging the symptoms of what he’d just experienced. Auditory hallucinations, loss of time—the sun was startlingly lower in its set--, phantom pain, distressed, shallow aspiration. He had heard of something similar before, perhaps even seen it in the flinch of an old soldier at the sudden clap of a door slam. But never had he thought—and this pain. He’d thought he’d long been healed of it. Thought the torturers of Mahon were confined in the past, sunk to the bottom of the sea with Jack’s sword. Little had he known that history could prepare such living nightmares for him.

Stephen buried the ring there where he stood. Moving slowly, feeling as though his body were not his own, he made his way numbly down the mountain side. When he reached town he sought out the apothecary and ordered such an amount of laudanum that the chemist had to suppress his surprise with a cough. When he arrived back on the deck of the _Surprise_ he was brought somewhat back to himself by Jack’s own wretched expression. Wordlessly they descended into the great cabin. Jack ordered a monstrous glass of ship’s grog while Stephen unashamedly measured out his dosage into a glass of brandy.

In the silence, in the gentle rocking of the ship, candle flames flickering and sending a familiar smoke into the air, Stephen felt the deadening effects of his dose begin to take a blessed hold.


End file.
